What drives you?

I was asked this question back in 2007 when I was on the verge of leaving the corporate world to start my own IFRS consulting business during the adoption of those accounting standards in India.

My office had shifted to a neighboring city but with the Metro and Airport Highway construction work, I was spending 5 hours a day commuting.

Relocating residence was not an option for my family. By then I’d already had my wake up call regarding my health and the need to change my lifestyle.

The querant was a lady introduced to me by a mutual professional contact who felt we could both benefit as she was looking for a person with my specific subject matter expertise to facilitate training in New Delhi on a contract basis and who also had the contacts for business development.

She owned a publishing company with live training being a secondary revenue stream.

The project didn’t work out because when I saw the contract and ran it through my lawyer, it was an employment contract with terms and conditions that even a bonded laborer wouldn’t have signed in India, if they knew what was good for them.

Besides, she told someone else with whom I was in talks for projects to keep away as she was interested in my knowledge and skills and that person obliged but not before telling me why he was backing out.

It was flattering to know she wanted me to come onboard but I was made to feel like a commodity rather than a serious professional who had a lot to bring to the table for an all-round win-win outcome. That’s another story for another time.

But yes, I walked away from both and went on to do work on projects that made me happy and kept me self-driven towards my purpose.

What she was asking me at that point was more about how self-driven I was and my end goal.

A good question when you consider I was walking away from a 6 figure salary with one of the biggest accounting firms in the world when the next rung of the ladder was partnership or becoming a Director, to follow my own ideas and passion.

As you can see, with Karmic Ally Coaching, I’ve arrived where I wanted to go and the journey continues as I have found my calling and purpose in life.

It’s a great feeling to find one’s purpose in life because you suddenly know where you should go and what you want to do!

But just as finding your purpose is important, it’s also important to make sure your purpose is self-driven.

Because if it isn’t, it may as well never get accomplished.

You’ve seen it on LinkedIn profiles but do you know what Self-Driven means?

Let’s go back to basics for a moment. When someone is self-driven, this means they are completely self-motivated to achieve their goals.

They get up every day and do what they have to do to get where they want to go.

They don’t need any exterior form of motivation or carrots being dangled in front of them because they are their own motivation. This makes it easy for them to accomplish things, because they want to do them.

They might need a mentor or coach to help them when they hit a rough patch on the way but they know where they are going.

Additionally, self-driven people don’t waste time. They take action in the now and don’t put off doing things that they can get done today.

Frankly speaking, you’ll never find a self-driven person sitting at home on the couch doing affirmations and visualizing that they were getting things done or hoping for a new job or promotion expecting it to happen.

To make the Law of Attraction work, you still need to take Deliberate Action!

How to tell if your Purpose is Self-Driven?

Now that we understand the meaning of self-driven, the next step is to identify if our purpose qualifies.

When you have found a purpose in life that is self-driven, it won’t feel like a chore to work towards it. Rather you will enjoy every minute that you spend pursuing your passion.

If you feel that someone has to drag you out of bed to complete your purpose, then there is definitely a chance that it isn’t self-driven. It’s a sign you need to reflect and introspect and figure it out.

Coming back for a minute to the bonded labour contract, I was talking to Beata, an old friend back in Warsaw, on the phone about it at the time.

She told me that while my lawyer could vet it for unfair terms and conditions, I should look at myself and how I was feeling.

She could make out the opportunity didn’t make my ‘heart sing’.

Besides having walked away from a job that others would have given their right arm for, it wasn’t my purpose because I would not have followed my dream to ‘fly solo’.

Beata was right, of course.

Why Should Your Purpose Be Self-Driven?

The simple answer is that if you don’t have the motivation to achieve your goals, then they will most likely never get done or will be a half-baked effort.

It’s the same thing about finding your purpose but lacking the drive to move towards it. It’s as good as simply daydreaming, chanting, affirming and expecting things to fall into place. It won’t happen.

If you want to accomplish your purpose, then make sure it is a self-driven one that you feel pushed to work towards successfully achieving.

But there’s more to this and it’s all about you.

You need to understand that your needs, wants and sense of purpose changes over time.

What’s important at the beginning of your career like getting a great job and the ability to get a loan to purchase your first home isn’t the same as it will be when you’re 25 years into your career.

At that point, your aspirations will change and you would be looking at avenues to fulfill your self-realization goals.

That’s what happened with me and what’s happening with a lot of people who are now part of The Great Resignation or Big Quit that got a boost from the pandemic and work from home aspect of a job.

Our focus has changed and so have our goals. If that sounds like you, then click here and download Life Focus in 7 Days.

It’s a good guide to use for a new beginning or to start in a new direction, whether in your life or career.

3 Simple Ways to increase your Self-Drive

Are you self-driven to achieve your purpose? Or feel you need to up your game? Especially when it comes to your career path?

If you’re discovering that your purpose maybe isn’t as self-driven as you thought, don’t fret, as there are some easy ways to increase your drive to help you achieve goals.

Take Responsibility

You’re the only person who is truly in charge of your life and you need to realize that. There is no one hovering your shoulder telling you what to do.

If you want to make a change, it’s time to get up and do it for yourself, because you are responsible.

Realizing this, and taking responsibility for the things that are happening in your life is the first step to increasing your self-drive.

Find a New Purpose

A key indicator that your goals might not be the right ones for you is if you’re struggling to achieve them and just soldiering on because that’s what’s expected of you.

Take a pause and a step back. Not everyone is cut out for everything.

I remember during my trainee days in London I had a great audit supervisor who suddenly handed in her papers.

Why?

She’d realized she didn’t want to become a Chartered Accountant! That too after passing the first level of exams with barely a year to complete the mandatory training required by our Institute.

Her knowledge and experience wasn’t lost but could be transferred to another career or line of work.

Don’t be afraid to start over and don’t be afraid to abandon something that just isn’t working.

If you aren’t feeling inspired by something, you will never be able to make it your self-driven purpose.

Wondering if your purpose is the real one? Ask yourself these 5 Key Questions to Discover your Life Purpose.

Or it might even be the case that you were self-driven until external forces that were beyond your control changed everything.

Maybe that’s the wakeup call you need to start your journey towards your true purpose. If that’s your case, then the roadmap provided in Wakeup Call: What happens when you accept your Call to Adventure will guide you.

Create a Plan

Sometimes, all you need to get yourself to become driven is to make an action plan for yourself. An action plan can make it easier to see where you are going in life and help inspire you to get moving.

But remember that a plan alone isn’t enough and you will definitely need to take responsibility as well!

Overall, when you think you’ve found your purpose in life, be sure to take a minute and ask yourself if it is a self-driven purpose.

This is important when it comes to knowing if you’ll be able to accomplish it. But if it is self-driven, you’re well on your way to success.

In the second part of this series, I’ll give you more guidance about finding your life purpose but for now, here’s a question to consider.

Are you self-driven when it comes to your career and life decisions?

In the hurry burry of living, have you ever found yourself in a place where you start wondering if you are suffering from the Imposter  Syndrome or feel that you have lost your true identity and are out of authenticity?

Ever started wondering about your life purpose? Then consider checking in on your Life Stance Manifesto or if haven’t got one, creating one to be your touchstone.

As we travel on the journey called Life, we do change. The person who you are today is not going to be the person you are tomorrow.

We grow with our experiences but when you start to feel that you are getting out of alignment with your core values and what you truly believe in; then it is as good a time as ever to craft your Life Stance Manifesto to remind you of what really matters.

It’s often a sign that you have experienced a Wakeup Call and are being beckoned to answer your Call to Adventure as I outline in my book, Wakeup Calls: What happens when you accept Your Call to Adventure.

A manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. It is derived from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum, meaning clear or conspicuous. Manifestos that relate to a religious belief are referred to as creeds.

Often political (like Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto) or artistic, I remember reading The Zen Manifesto by Osho many years ago which outlined his philosophy.

A Manifesto can also represent a person’s Life Stance which is what we will create in this post.

What is a Life Stance?

Before we can craft our Manifesto, it is important to actually understand what we mean by Life Stance.

Harry Stopes-Roe, of the Humanist movement, defined Life Stance as

– the style and content of an individual’s or a community’s relationship with that which is of ultimate importance; the presuppositions and commitments of this, and the consequences for living which flow from it.

Your Life Stance is your relationship with what you believe to be of utmost importance to you and encompasses your belief system and perspectives of reality by which you choose to live. It is your core essence and what comes into play when you ‘walk your talk’.

The beauty of about a Life Stance Manifesto is that no two are ever alike because no two people are ever the same. Each Life Stance Manifesto is unique and holds up a mirror to the creator of the Manifesto to check if they are living according to their truth.

Your Life stance Manifesto can be as long or short as you want; all it really requires is that it represents all that is of utmost importance to you and in a manner of speaking, non-negotiable.

Here’s an example of my Unapologetic Manifesto that I wrote recently to summarize what was important for me – to live my life without apologizing for my beliefs and on my terms.

(Update: Post recent WordPress security updates, you need to click below the image where it says to click here to be taken to the presentation on Slideshare. The presentation will open in a new window and I invite you to follow me on Slideshare-Vatsala Shukla)

Click here to see the presentation

What you see is taking sentences and completing them with what holds value for you and what you really believe it.

Write Your Life Stance Manifesto

Want to have a shot at writing your own Life Stance Manifesto?

First you need to work out what really portrays your true and authentic self.

To get you started on identifying this element, check out the following posts for ideas on your life purpose and how you would like your obituary to read.

How to discover your Life Purpose and fulfill your Destiny

and How would your obituary read?

Then, choose 5 or 6 that are most important for you and create your statements. Remember, the key – utmost importance to you and are truths that you live by.

Here are some sentence examples that you can use.

When I wake up in the morning………

I am………

I believe………

I am happiest when…….

The one thing I want to be remembered as………………..

This is just an idea of the proclaiming sentences that you can create.

To be effective, you must be able to see the Life Stance Manifesto whenever you are feeling out of alignment with your purpose.

Take it a step further. Find images and superimpose your statements on them using power point slides. You might want to create a power point slide with all your core statements and print it.

Keep it in a place where you can see your Life stance Manifesto when you feel out of alignment with all that you hold close to your heart.

Give it a shot, you might just see the effect trickle into your Vision and Mission Statements and who knows, your Brand Statement too.

Your next mission, if you choose to accept it is to share some of your lines of your Life Stance Manifesto here and inspire other readers to create their own. So, are you game to share?

Written By: Vatsala Shukla